Menispermaceae

Menispermaceae is a family of flowering plants. The alkaloid tubocurarine, a neuromuscular blocker and the active ingredient in the 'tube curare' form of the dart poison curare, is derived from the South American liana Chondrodendron tomentosum, which belongs to this family. Several other South American genera belonging to the family have been used to prepare the 'pot' and 'calabash' forms of curare. The family contains 81 genera with some 440 species, which are distributed throughout low-lying tropical areas with some species present in temperate and arid regions.

Menispermaceae

Nadiatalent · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
RanunculalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 113.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 15 of 288 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 41 of 288 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 53 of 288 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 127 of 288 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 288 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 14 of 288 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 288 occurrencesPleistocene — about 32 of 288 occurrences115–112 Mya — about 2 occurrences112–108 Mya — about 4 occurrences108–104 Mya — about 5 occurrences104–100 Mya — about 5 occurrences100–96 Mya — about 6 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 4 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 1 occurrence89–85 Mya — about 3 occurrences85–81 Mya — about 3 occurrences81–77 Mya — about 2 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 2 occurrences73–69 Mya — about 9 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 12 occurrences65–62 Mya — about 16 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 17 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 37 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 32 occurrences50–46 Mya — about 20 occurrences46–42 Mya — about 17 occurrences42–38 Mya — about 17 occurrences38–35 Mya — about 18 occurrences35–31 Mya — about 4 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 1 occurrence27–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–19 Mya — about 2 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 3 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 4 occurrences12–7.7 Mya — about 3 occurrences7.7–3.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.8–0 Mya — about 36 occurrences100.5 Mya11.7 ka115 Mya0 Mya

288 occurrences of Menispermaceae on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

288 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

43 formations

Fort Union — 45.00°N, 109.00°WFort Union — 44.00°N, 108.00°WFort Union — 44.21°N, 107.90°WFort Union — 46.52°N, 103.86°WFort Union — 46.35°N, 103.87°WFort Union — 46.91°N, 101.44°WFort Union — 46.34°N, 103.86°WFort Union — 46.46°N, 103.98°WFort Union — 46.34°N, 103.99°WFort Union — 46.00°N, 103.00°WLondon Clay — 50.78°N, 0.65°WLondon Clay — 51.83°N, 1.25°ELondon Clay — 51.37°N, 1.13°ELondon Clay — 50.93°N, 1.48°WLondon Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°EWillwood — 44.29°N, 108.05°WWillwood — 44.00°N, 108.00°WWillwood — 44.51°N, 108.25°WWillwood — 44.00°N, 107.00°WWillwood — 44.42°N, 108.18°WWillwood — 44.39°N, 108.10°WWillwood — 44.50°N, 108.09°WWillwood — 44.00°N, 109.00°WKrivorechenskaya — 64.48°N, 168.92°ECerrejón — 11.13°N, 72.58°WCerrejón — 11.22°N, 72.92°WGolden Valley — 46.97°N, 102.08°WGolden Valley — 46.92°N, 102.58°WGolden Valley — 47.00°N, 102.67°WGolden Valley — 47.37°N, 103.02°WTienen — 50.78°N, 5.08°EBagshot — 50.70°N, 2.03°WTuscaloosa — 33.92°N, 87.74°WTuscaloosa — 33.61°N, 87.74°WTuscaloosa — 33.17°N, 87.43°WOldhaven — 50.78°N, 0.08°EHell Creek — 46.39°N, 103.94°WHell Creek — 45.87°N, 103.79°WHell Creek — 46.14°N, 103.85°WWuyun — 49.28°N, 129.67°ELance — 43.08°N, 104.63°WLance — 43.17°N, 104.59°WComox — 49.75°N, 125.00°WBogota — 5.08°N, 73.96°WBogota — 5.14°N, 73.86°WHuitrera — 42.50°S, 70.00°WHuitrera — 42.58°S, 70.03°WSalamanca — 45.91°S, 69.21°WNgorora — 0.88°N, 35.80°EGreen River — 39.78°N, 107.87°WGreen River — 41.10°N, 109.30°WCommotion — 55.50°N, 122.00°WDunvegan — 55.70°N, 121.17°WDunvegan — 55.92°N, 118.48°WMilk River — 49.07°N, 111.59°WMilk River — 49.08°N, 111.41°WJohn Day — 44.64°N, 120.30°WJohn Day — 44.16°N, 120.46°WWillwood Formatin — 44.35°N, 108.07°W

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The named rock units Menispermaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 107 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Menispermaceae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Menispermaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,852 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 176 sites for Menispermaceae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

55 references

Each of the 288 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 43 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Menispermaceae

Credit
Nadiatalent
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Menispermaceae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itRanunculales through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. de Jussieu 1789